Our Sin Does Merit Hell
by uncertainid
Summary: A Brighton Rock fanfiction, based on the 1947 film.  The Boy considers his own damnation.


Just a small drabble I wrote for Brighton Rock tonight. It probably could use some polishing which I'll get round to doing sometime... But anyway, it's got spoilers for parts of the film, but if you don't particularly care about that or know what happens in the film anyway, please read :)  
It's a bit angsty and the parts in italics are either thoughts or flashbacks. Hope you enjoy.

Fandom – Brighton Rock (the film version)  
Title – 'Our Sin Does Merit Hell'  
Author – **uncertainid**  
Rating – T  
Genre- Character study, angst  
Length – 691 words  
Summary – The Boy considers his own damnation.  
Spoilers – The end of the movie, some plot details  
Disclaimer – I do not own Brighton Rock, whether that be the film or the novel. I also do not own the characters in the film and the novel.

'Our Sin Does Merit Hell'  
The Boy had spent a fair portion of his life imagining Hell. The torments, the flames and the sheer agony of it. He'd claimed that it was something that was just there, not worth worrying about, but... The Boy had worried about it. When Colleoni's thugs had slashed him with their long cut-throat razors, Hell came to mind. Pain, blood, and humiliation. That was what his destiny was to be, as he fell off the pier, that is what he knew he was heading for.

As he fell, the Boy screamed in a mix of terror and sheer defiance. He didn't want to go. Not yet. He'd had so much he wanted to do. So much raw determination and darkness yet to be fully developed, it wasn't _fair._

Somewhere, perhaps from one of the brats in the council school, he'd heard of the phrase 'life flashing before your eyes'. That was meant to happen when you died. He was falling, like that man in the ancient poem:  
'Between the stirrup and the ground, I mercy sought and mercy found.'  
Was this his chance for mercy? Forgiveness from God? A chance to escape his eternity in Hell, the torments and flames waiting for him? No...

Perhaps if the Boy were a better man, he could seize the opportunity. Make himself repent. Clutch onto the forgiveness that had been offered instead of shunning it. Peace was an impossibility for him. He just... He couldn't. Something deep and bitter and twisted inside him wouldn't allow himself to be saved. The Boy knew to be saved he needed to repent, to be _sorry, _but he was not sorry. He had killed Spicer and Fred and had tried to kill Rose... But beyond imagining their faces the Boy could not feel anything for them. If he did feel anything towards them it was hate and disgust.  
_  
'I'd kill 'em again if I could.'_

It crossed his mind with evil and defiance. He would not repent. He would be damned. The Boy was afraid to burn, he knew what Hell was. He'd learned about it. Been warned about it by the priests and the teachers, burning lines of a cane falling onto him in school had warned him.

_A shabby school uniform, shorts and a shirt that was too big, a tie messily done up. The Boy was weeping.  
A teacher, dressed smartly, no empathy or even kind firmness in his voice as he spoke: "What does the Bible say, Brown, about this?"  
A long sleeve wiped his nose, the Boy's voice softer and more vulnerable in his childhood. "'The rod and rebuke give wisdom, But a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.' Proverbs 29:15."  
"At least you know something of morality in that, Brown. That is correct. And is your mother ashamed?" The teacher asked, a disapproving air about him, the cane still lingering in his hands, threatening him.  
"I don't know."  
"She might be. You're disobedient, Brown. Stubborn, and cruel." The teacher told him, again, with no sympathy towards the Boy who still had tears on his cheeks. "But I will do as the Bible says and beat it out of you. 'You shall beat him with the rod. And deliver his soul from Hell.' As the good book says."  
The Boy frowned a bit, looking genuinely curious. "Is Hell worth being saved from, even through this?"  
"Don't be foolish, of course it is! Hell, Brown, is worse than anything I could dish out with this." The teacher scoffed, swishing the cane sharply in the air._

The Boy realised it then. He had no reason to fear Hell. Humiliation, pain, torments... Each things in Hell he had experienced on Earth. His whole life was filled with Hell. Never Heaven, never peace. It was just as well he was damned, Heaven would be utterly bizarre to him. The Boy smiled just slightly, something next to a sneer.

_"'Between the stirrup and the ground...' What rubbish." _

The Boy had reached his end. There was no splash that he heard, instead, he felt an instant agony. The flames had literally took him.


End file.
